Fresh blood

A cursory glance reveals that king of the heap is Timur Bekmambetov's Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, with £1.12m. However, in reality, the high-concept historical actioner landed in fifth place for the weekend, with £744,000. The discrepancy between those two figures is accounted for by preview takings on Wednesday and Thursday, enough to send the film leapfrogging over its rivals. Bekmambetov's film was always going to be a tricky sell at the UK box office: films about early US presidents have tended not to flourish here (anyone recall Jefferson in Paris, from 1995?). As for star Benjamin Walker, he's hardly a marquee name in the US either, but at least he enjoys some profile there for stage hit musical Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, about another early US president.

Among the new entrants, honours really belong to The Five-Year Engagement, which debuted with a reasonable £1.06m. The number is behind the pace of Nicholas Stoller and Jason Segel's Forgetting Sarah Marshall (£2.14m opening, including £394,000 in previews), but pretty even with Get Him to the Greek (£1.57m, including £495,000 in previews). Their The Muppets began its run in February with £2.65m.

The real winner

Over the Friday-to-Sunday weekend period, the spoils really belong to Men in Black 3, returning to the chart summit on its fifth weekend of release. The PG-rated sci-fi comedy debuted with a disappointing £2.94m, less than half the opening salvos of the previous two Men in Black films. Distributor Sony was unlucky to have picked the hottest weekend of the year to release the picture, especially since the sunshine followed a dismal April and patchy May. Since then, sales have been steady, and the title has clawed its way to just over £19m, a healthy 6.5 times its opening figure. The goal now is to match Men in Black 2's lifetime total of £22.26m. (The original Men in Black's £35.82m was never in consideration.)

Prometheus, with £21.64m so far, is now the ninth biggest hit of the last 12 months. The Avengers, with £51.35m, has just overtaken Quantum of Solace to nab 15th position in the all-time UK box-office rankings. Next target: The Full Monty.

The losers

With a wide opening of 283 screens, a gross of £113,000, a site average of just £398, and 16th place in the chart, Stephen Frears' Lay the Favourite is the week's biggest miss. Set in the world of sports betting, and based on a memoir by Beth Raymer, the film always represented a distribution challenge, with no defined audience to target. A sports gambling storyline with a female protagonist starring commercially unproven Rebecca Hall? Co-stars Bruce Willis, Catherine Zeta Jones, Vince Vaughn and Joshua Jackson certainly added value, but the comedy-drama-romance lacked a clear genre sell. Gambling-themed films have had mixed fortunes at the UK box office. Lucky You, starring Eric Bana and Drew Barrymore, proved a busted flush, opening with a dismal £56,000 from 115 screens back in July 2007. Nine months later, 21, with Jim Sturgess and Kevin Spacey, debuted with a strong £1.65m including £142,000 in previews. With horror picture Chernobyl Diaries, distributor StudioCanal at least had a clear audience target to aim at, but the £496,000 from 289 screens is hardly a triumph.

The conundrum

When Think Like a Man opened in the US in April, it topped the box office chart for two weeks, going on to gross $91m. Based on the US numbers, a UK debut around £3.4m was indicated. Of course, that was never going to happen. It's rare for comedies featuring largely African American casts to come even close to replicating their US success in the UK, and Sony released the film here on a tight 53 screens. An £82,000 opening resulted, delivering a site average of £1,538.

At first sight, that looks like a crushing failure for the film, based on Steve Harvey's relationship advice book, with a cast including Chris Brown, Regina Hall and Taraji P Henson. A more complex picture emerges if you look at just the London numbers: Think Like a Man was the top earner over the weekend at Odeon Holloway Road, Odeon Streatham, Vue Croydon, Vue Acton and Enfield Cineworld. The 20 London sites delivered 75% of the film's gross. Clearly, there are many screens out of London where the film failed, but it is well positioned to hold cinemas where it flourished.

The event

Not included in the box office chart by the official data gatherers, but believed to have earned approximately £450,000 from about 200 cinemas, is Westlife: The Farewell Concert. A screen average in the £2,250 range may not seem like a triumph, but when you consider this was earned from a single showtime (on Saturday evening), as opposed to a movie's typical four showings per day on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, the number is pretty impressive. Had the event been included, it would have nabbed eighth position in the box office chart. Top screen average in the top 10 in fact belongs to Teri Meri Kahaani, a Bollywood romantic drama that flits between three love stories in different time periods, with £3,589 per theatre.

The future

With Euro 2012 entering its third weekend on 22 June, the market is now really suffering from an extended period with no major blockbuster release – the last ones, Prometheus and Snow White and the Huntsman, landed on 1 June. Unsurprisingly, numbers for the latest frame are well down on the equivalent weekend from 2011 (when Bridesmaids debuted at the top) – 25% behind, in fact. Since football continues into next weekend (the final is on Sunday), distributors have again been cautious, with smart romantic comedy Friends with Kids, 18-certificate trailer-trash drama Killer Joe and low-budget Brit genre flick Storage 24 among the official wide releases. Ice Age: Continental Drift is playing previews from Saturday, well ahead of its official 13 July release date, and should easily dominate the market.